PUPPIES!

Deeda:
Mabel:

Brewski number twoski

Well, it was bound to happen: I would neglect the blog. Anyhoo, a few things have happened in recent weeks: 1) Shea and I have adopted some puppies that he found in the middle of the road and thought were horse shit until they moved. Their names are Mabel and Deeda (short for Perdida). They are adorable little muts with black bodies and white paws. Mabel is furry and Deeda is short-haired. Deeda is the alpha and Mabel is a massive clutz who always starts the fights but can't win them. 2) I have bought my ticket to get the the F*%$ out of here on April 23rd. USA! USA! Urbaninity! USA! 3) Shea's foot gets grodier and grodier looking as it heals but that is, apparently, a good sign. 4) We've had two reporters, one from BA and one for the Sydney Herald, come through to write articles about La Confluencia. Both articles are forthcoming in the next month. 5) Shea and I have another Brewski in the works--a Belgian Strong. The last one was so tasty we had to see if it was beginners luck or straight skillz.

That's it on the news front. On the the existential side, I'm wondering what to do with myself when I get back to the states and am open to your suggestions. Cooking is definitely a love but I remain unconvinced that it is the best direction for my long-term happiness. Ever met a chef that's not overworked, easily pissed off and generally resentful of people outside the business? No? Me neither. And well, considering the amount of time I spend pissed off by all the oblivious and trifling people around me that "don't get it" and are clearly "f*&#ing idiots," I think I might be headed in that direction... So, let me know what you think.

XO,
C

uff

Well, what a month. The Holidays ended with a new year and a full house. The Confluencia was packed with four families and their respective gremlins. I made a lot of kid-friendly items: pizza party, lasagnas, massive chocolate and dulce de leche cakes. The group left raving about the place, the the service and the food: two thumbs up. The day after they left, Shea organized a rafting cruise for a group of us down the river. We needed a vehicle at the "put in" and the "take out" so Shea drove the motorcycle and we followed in the truck.

Without having to relive the whole thing, I'll tell you that we (in the truck) pulled up to an accident on the road ahead to find that it was Shea on the asphalt in a puddle of blood screaming and crying. His foot was a mangled mess but the rest of him was fine (phew, considering he catapulted himself over a car at 40 mph). After offending the doctor's teeny-weeny egoes here in Bolson by asking for a second opinion, he was kicked out of the hospital and loaded up on pain killers for a drive to Buenos Aires (the doctors refused to sign waivers allowing him to fly) Anyhoo, thank the LAWD he went up there because the doctors in BA were able to do in one surgery what the doctors here said would take five.

So, he's up there recovering and I'm down here cooking and trying to manage my stress levels.

I leave you with some pictures of simpler and yummier times (the cherry tree is no longer fruiting :( ):

Happy Holidays and Baby Horsies!

A real baby horse was born at the farm yesterday. I promise to take a picture and post it soon :)

For your consumption

I thought this would be cooler than it is. However, I am still very fond of the idea.

Tipo Roja or Hop To It

Shea and I have brewed our first beer. The idea being that, by brewing our own, we can add a little American-style hop to our beer-drinking routine. We went ambitious on our first try and did an all-grain batch. (Read: the beer will probably be flawed due to the increased opportunities for contamination). This means that we started with the malted barley, ground it ourselves:



(Goodness... I look like a f*&#ing hippy, don't I?) mashed it ourselves:



etc:



I had spent the day making Paneer and Ghee because I was craving Indian food (vegetarian, of course) which we ate while we crafted Christmas cards and waited for the mash to wart (or something like that.)


all to the soundtrack of Nina Simone and The FIRST Mariah Carey Christmas Album.

In short, I should probably move to the Pacific Northwest... but then, that would just make me a cliché, wouldn't it?

An afternoon ride

I'm fresh off the heels of a terrible bout of the stomach flu but I won't disgust you with the details of that episode.

Last Saturday Shea and I scouted a bike trail for a trip that LAT42's going to guide with a company called Sacred Rides out of Canada. Going in to this, i knew I was signing up for 12 to 13 miles of biking. I also knew that mountain biking would probably be more difficult than road biking so, I set my brain to challenging mode, all the while comforting myself in knowing that, though the path may be a bit rocky, it was relatively flat and skirted a pretty river. Right.

Anyhoo, as an illustrative point, I present you with some pictures of Shea riding bikes:





And then let's remember what happens to me and my accessories when I engage in downhill sports:



So, keeping all this in mind, I'll now tell you that the first half of the ride was beautiful and very nearly flat featuring waterfalls, wide meandering rivers, horses running free and the occasional families of sheep and cows.

The first time I fell I got up like a champ: laughed it off and patted myself on the back for attempting to follow Shea who had bunny-jumped over a log in the middle of the trail.

About a half-hour after later the trail started to get hilly. Then I fell into a pile of shit/mud and could hear it squirting in my shoes. At one point we got lost and went down (and up) two large and rocky hills we didn't need to. It was cold, I was sweaty and Pissy Princess made an appearance. Shea handled things as best he could: waiting at the top of every hill with a cookie extended in my direction and helping me get my bike across the bigger stream clearings. He was noticeably wary of the looks I was cutting him and fell into startled silence when, upon turning another corner that revealed another hill, an admittedly terrifying scream of anger gurgled out of me. (The cookies were his saving grace.) Luckily, my extreme frustration and tantrum only lasted about a twenty minutes and we popped out of the park at a Parilla where i was fed mountains of sizzling meat and all was well. (Until I got some sort of Giardia from the shit/mud puddle episode and was laid up in bed for three days cursing my fate!)

So, that was that. Did you have fun laughing at me? Here's a nice shot of a battle wound on my thigh... a week later:



On that note, I'll leave you with some food porn:






my sourdough skillz are getting pretty legit btdubs.

Stay tuned for the brew blog.

CMC